Several states have expanded the use of mail-in voting in recent years, with some sending absentee ballots 45 to 60 days before Election Day and allowing ballots received by Election Day to be counted days or weeks afterward. In several blue states, the counting of absentee ballots can continue for up to three weeks after polls close, extending the election certification process beyond Election Day.
Critics say prolonged counting can lead to shifting vote totals and undermine public confidence in election outcomes, and now they’re doing something about it, Just the News reports.
Republicans have moved to restrict the practice in recent months. President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for all ballots to be counted on election night. Separately, a legal challenge to Mississippi’s ballot-counting procedures is pending and has not yet reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Ohio, the state legislature approved a measure requiring all ballots to be received by election night in order to be counted, aligning the state’s process more closely with in-person voting timelines.
“It’s common sense that ballots should arrive by Election Day,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told Just the News this week after his state became the 35th to require mail-in ballots to arrive by Election Night in order to be counted.
The state previously allowed ballots to arrive four days after Election Day.
“I think that trying to reduce complexity should be our goal in government, and certainly when it comes to the rules for how elections run,” LaRose said in a wide-ranging interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast. “If you were to stop the average person on the street last year and say, what’s the deadline for your ballot to get back to the board of elections, they would not know that it’s four days after. It’s kind of an arbitrary date.”
“Federal law establishes a uniform Election Day across the Nation for Federal elections,” Trump’s order stated. “It is the policy of my Administration to enforce those statutes and require that votes be cast and received by the election date established in law.”
Trump emphasized the importance of returning to same-day election counting, drawing comparisons with other countries that ensure a winner can be declared as soon as polls close, rather than days later.
“The United States now fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections employed by modern, developed nations, as well as those still developing,” his order noted. “India and Brazil, for example, are tying voter identification to a biometric database, while the United States largely relies on self-attestation for citizenship.
“In tabulating votes, Germany and Canada require use of paper ballots, counted in public by local officials, which substantially reduces the number of disputes as compared to the American patchwork of voting methods that can lead to basic chain-of-custody problems,” it noted.
“Further, while countries like Denmark and Sweden sensibly limit mail-in voting to those unable to vote in person and do not count late-arriving votes regardless of the date of postmark, many American elections now feature mass voting by mail, with many officials accepting ballots without postmarks or those received well after Election Day.”
The same issue is currently being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. In November, the Court agreed to hear a case brought by the Republican National Committee that challenges Mississippi’s law permitting mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after the polls close.
The National Conference of State Legislatures reported that many states now mail absentee or mail-in ballots as early as 45 days to two months before Election Day, the outlet noted.
According to the organization, about a dozen states allow ballots to be counted after Election Day if they meet certain requirements. In Washington, ballots can be counted for up to three weeks after Election Day. Illinois allows up to 14 days, while Maryland permits 10 days. California and New York allow ballots to be counted for up to seven days after polls close.
